I had the great privilege this past weekend to connect in Denver, Colorado with outstanding college students, faculty, and administrators at a conference organized by two American Association of State Colleges and Universities projects: American Democracy Project and The Democracy Commitment. Both organizations share CVP’s commitment to ensuring that more college students are active participants in our democracy.

There has never been a more important time for young people to become politically active. Millennials have come of age in an extremely difficult time; they’ve had to face wars, a weak economy, and constant political polarization within government. Crushing student debt and bleak job prospects make the future look grim. To many, it seems like Millennials have been forced into this dire situation, and have to sit by and accept their fate. But it’s not true!

The Illinois legislature has approved a bill with a long list of electoral reforms that will benefit student voters.

The battle to keep student IDs as an acceptable form of voter ID in New Hampshire has united students from both political parties. Young Democrat and Republican leaders have cosigned a letter to New Hampshire state senators urging them to alter their current course of action and explicitly list student IDs for private and state colleges as acceptable forms of voter ID.

College students in Dutchess County, New York successfully stopped an attack on the rights of student voters in their community. Four students from Marist College, Bard College, and the Culinary Institute of America filed a federal class action lawsuit last year to protect their right to vote in the November 2012 general election.

Some members of New Hampshire’s Senate Public and Municipal Affairs Committee are attempting to gut bills designed to minimize the damage done to student voting rights by the last legislature.

Republicans in the Ohio House of Representatives included potentially unconstitutional language in a substitute budget bill designed to make it more difficult for students attending Ohio colleges to vote in their college communities. The language would require any public college or university that issues a letter or utility bill to a student for voter ID purposes to charge that student in-state tuition.

Colorado students will find it easier to register to vote with new legislation waiting for the Governor’s signature. House Bill 1147 requires state colleges that have online class registration to offer students the opportunity to register to vote online when students register for courses at the beginning of the semester. Colleges without online course registration are required to provide students with information on how to register to vote.